MSimon wrote:Dave,
Yes there are different cells in the body. And it is a good analogy with human culture.
There are people out there (you know who they are) who think liver cells are good and spleen cells are bad. Others who think that the heart cells and the lung cells ought to join to together to eliminate the brain cells which get way too many resources..
There are also cancers (criminals), pre-cancerous cells (liberals), viruses (bad memes), bad bacterial infections (terrorists), toxins (drugs) and immune\indocrine system response.(Police\Medical)
Sometimes the immune response overreacts and attacks portions of the body, but most of the time it's attacking something toxic like cancer, viruses, or bacteria.
Obviously if the immune system attacks any necessary cells it is a fatal disease. More often though, the immune regulation system (courts) gets out of whack and allows various antigens (criminals,liberals,bad memes,terrorists, and drugs) to run amuck. This eventually results in a inflammation (violent conflicts in various parts of the body) and fever (anger from unhappy cells) and is eventually resolved with an occcasional purge of antigens. (election\defecation)
In any case, the brain of this nation is infected with cancer and precancerous growths, and it has grown massive blood supplies(angiogenesis) from the rest of the body to feed this massive tumor. All attempts at antigenesis have been so far futile, and unless something stops it, it is quite likely to be fatal.
MSimon wrote:
And then there is the difficulty of general optimization vs individual optimization. The USA generally chooses individual optimization as producing the best general results. And it seems to work rather well. Judging by results.
Take my own case for instance - I require a lot more vitamin C than average to maintain optimum health. A general optimization would say my consumption is out of line. Individual optimization works for me.
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Even individual cells in a body have variations, and these are normal within a range. Mitochondria are more or less efficient depending on factors such as age, expousure to toxins\viruses, and defective copying etc.
MSimon wrote:
Now I have gone through the technical stuff so often I'm going to assume you are up on it. So let me fly here:
About 5% to 15% of the population needs anti-depressants for optimum function. So do we do a general optimization where we divide the average supply needed per person among the whole population? Or do we do the individual thing and let those who need anti-depressants get what they need and the remaining population can ignore the whole business?
Which brings us to the final question. Do we only allow the medical cartel to supply the drugs or should people be allowed to grow their own? Before 1937 and for at least 5,000 years growing your own was a viable option.
So tell me why was the wisdom of 5,000 years suddenly discarded?
History says that the reason was to induce Mexican labor to move back to Mexico at the height of the depression in order to raise wages in America by reducing competition. Now targeting Mexicans per se would have been naughty. So we targeted the natural anti-depressant use that was pretty much specific to the Mexican population. At least at that time.
And of course the reason all this continues is that the drug cartel produces about $50 bn a year in anti-depressants at about $1 a dose. Think of what it would meant to them if people were producing their own at 1 cent a dose.
Now most right thinking people are against government support for cartels legitimate or illegitimate. However, in the case of anti-depressants the interests of a legitimate and an illegitimate cartel coincide and they have convinced the general population that natural anti-depressants are bad and cartel provided ones are good. And hallelujah. You have your choice of cartels depending on what you can afford.
That doesn't seem like an optimum solution to me. YMMV.
Plants evolved toxins to prevent animals from eating them. Plant toxins were derived from plant enzimes which were modified (by evolution) to interfer with the normal operation of the herbivoure's nervous system.
The purpose was to prevent consumption of the plant by killing or disorienting the animal, but animals have co-evolved to not only tolerate the toxins, but to enjoy them.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Para ... 3603.shtml
http://www.physorg.com/news140014006.html
Fortunately, most people who've never been exposed to these various plant toxins have no need for them, but unfortunately, some who are more sensitive to the effects, rewire their brains to stimulate their pleasure centers as a result of their consumption of the plant toxins. In the natural world these individuals would likely consume so much of the plant toxin that they would crash and die, and thence forth not bother the plants anymore, but in the artificial structure that is modern society, the natural (evolved) outcome is prevented.
The bottom line is, Drugs are a self defense mechanism for plants. People need to leave the poor plants alone.
David